@Brian Peters: "Not the main point of the thread, but I was interested that Newport Boy wrote:

"Go back 300 years, and only a minority of musicians and singers were paid anything. These were musicians engaged by the upper classes. The majority sang or played for the community of which they were part and didn't expect any payment."

Going back 300 years would put you in the heyday of the broadside sellers, who would sing their ballads on the street in the hope of pulling a crowd and selling their wares at a penny a time. Best guess is that there were many hundreds of these making a living by plying their trade to the lower classes, and they were a very important means of disseminating what later became folk songs."

Agreed in essence, Brian, but I was making a simplified point. I think "many hundreds" would be an upper estimate, and many broadside printers did not sing the ballads they printed. Some of the more productive kept a tame musician to do that (and also to adapt tunes for new words). I left them out mainly because their living was made principally from printing and selling sheet music (or words) and the discussion was about performing musicians.

Phil